F35 Orders Getting Cancelled Left and Right in Canada, Europe and Nato
 

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/19/nx-s1...o-trump-gripen

Portugal cancels its 6 billion order of F35. Canada is seriously considering cancelling it's F35 orders and looking elsewhere for their air defense needs. They fear that the US might withhold vital software updates or block access to spare parts needed to maintain the operation of the aircraft.

Nato is also rumored to reconsider it's F35 orders due to Trump's handling of the Ukraine and the multiple tariffs he's imposing on many countries.

The market for American weapons has taken a drastic downturn after Trump took over.

I think more alarming is the lost of trust and reputation for American weasons under Trump's administration.

F35 is a 5th gen aircraft and delivery to many countries is years away, yet the F47 is a 6th gen that is supposed to have a similar availability date. Many countries would rather have a 6th gen 4-7 years after they would have had the 5th gen delivered. Some countries are also low on funds and their prepayment for F35s will carry over to F47 without continuing payments at a later date depending upon DDTC (Congressional) approval, and some are butthurt over being forced to pay the same tariffs that they place on US goods....

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Yep, with friends like us, who needs enemies?

I’m quite surprised we haven’t been tossed out of Five Eyes yet, since we can’t be trusted around Putin.

F35 Orders Getting Cancelled Left and Right in Canada, Europe and Nato
 

I’m good with a lack of enemies!


E53 RiPPeR
XOuTPoST jUNkiE
ReVELaTiON 22:21

I know that people don't like to acknowledge that all these other countries have been hitting the UNITED STATES with tariffs on our products for years, yet when we do matching/reciprocal tariffs we're the "bad guys"? If countries don't like getting tariffs placed on them because it's not good for their economies, but they were doing the same to us for years and years. Canada for example has been charging us 245% on all dairy products, France 100%+ on wine or the EU 50%+ on beef plus banning the import of chicken.

That means they were more like people taking advantage of the US than friends and although most countries dropped their F35 orders for the the other reasons I listed in my previous post 6th gen instead of 5th gen and the length of time it takes for approval by Congress for (FMS) Foreign Military Sales or the other route is through the Department of Commerce, than for tariff reasons.

My job handles this now and it's not uncommon for say the purchase of missiles that were approved by Congress say AMRAAM (block 7) production being stopped and (block 8) starting. The cost is different and the old approval doesn't work for the newer model, quantity, etc, so the request must be resubmitted. The relevant information on this activity can be found under (ITAR) International Traffic in Arms Regulation if anyone would like to see what kind of pain in the ass this process is...

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The dairy problem actually started with the US dumping milk into Canada. I have a few friends that were dairy farmers. I imagine there is more than you realize to most of those "everyone is ripping us off" stories. Automotive and unions is another one. Have you seen any of your documentaries on chicken??

Anyway when you say things like "Europe is Pathetic, "Let them kill each other off," and "we should never have let them rebuild after the war," you gotta expect that to have some impact on fighter jet sales. Just disgusting.

I agree. The US has historically levies just as many tariffs on other countries products as they have on ours. Sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes not. Unraveling these reasons, cause and effect, etc. can rapidly devolve into partisanship and recriminations. It’s clear to me though that populists use tariffs for votes primarily, as part of a broader message their base. Unfortunately this base doesn’t benefit in any way historically from specific tariffs, but that’s not the point of them historically, or now. Case in point, the US taxpayer had to bail out the US farmers (mostly Midwest) to the tune of over $60B during trump’s first trade war. Since amount this was roughly the same amount collected effectively from US consumers from the tariffs, the US consumers paid double for being stupid. If protecting our farmers was important, maybe we should have just given $60b to them and called it a better investment.

The US has levied a 14% tariff on Canadian lumber since the early 80s. US lumber imports from Canada however, have steadily grown to the point where now we import roughly half of our softwood demand from our former friend and ally to the north. The lumbar industry died in the US not because of Canadian trees, but because the majority of US voters decided the spotted owl and its fellow public land forest dwellers were not worth killing off in search of cheap wood. This is only one example of there being a much, much bigger picture to the tariff issue that populist politicians won’t, or can’t incorporate into thier thinking and arguments. And yes, Canada surely levies tariffs on specific US products as do many other countries.

Regardless of why though, it seems pretty clear that tariffs, don’t, and never have solved the broader economic imbalances that some politicians pandering to a base claim they will. But as a targeted solution to specific imbalances and hostile trade policies, national security concerns, or ironically to bolster a strong climate policy by making products produced in countries with little to no climate policies more expensive, they should be considered. I say ironically because this is exactly what the US does: we export our dirty work and then bitch about things being too expensive. We don’t want to see it being made by kids in smoggy places, but we certainly don’t want to pay more for it.

As far as the F-35 goes, I would cancel my orders too if I was a country being crapped on by the trump administration. There are excellent 4th and 4.5 gen fighters out there to bridge the gap and that are easily the match of Russian and Chinese planes, and it’s a horribly bloated, expensive and compromised program. That isn’t to say it’s not a great platform though, but this is what misguided, populist trade wars result in.

We never exported the F-22, for national security reasons, I’m skeptical that we will export its replacement. It’s tough enough for us to protect our national secrets here in the US, Signal chats notwithstanding!

Yep, plus it's crazy that people on this BMW forum seem to know more than the Trump administration "specialists" for military, economic, climate, science and social issues! ;)

The car Tariff is going to be the same problem because it will increase the price of the car as long as the parts are more expensive regardless of weather it's because of tariffing the cheaper parts or the parts being more expensive because they are made in the States (maybe with Tariffed materials and Union labour) which is why they are being made elsewhere in the first place! Any new factories being built are going to very highly mechanised and require way fewer workers so the union job creation part is not going to go well either. The only explanation that seems to at least partly fit is that Donald Trump wants to get rid of any competition for Elon Musk's Teslas. BTW I came across the "Polstar" as an alternative to the Tesla, I've never heard of it before but in fitting with being "Swedish" and understated, they haven't been advertising much! ;)

Well my job is to handle a US Foreign Military Sales to Saudi Arabia and beforethat it was Honduras, Colombia and Iraq, so....

I do actually know what's going on with this subject. I don't know more than the administration, but I do know more than people basing their reasoning off of network news.

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Re: the "Signal chat." AFAIK Canada had a very successful sting operation working with the previous administration where we gave access to the info on same type of "encrypted" app that the Cartels, Russian mob and other assorted bad guys were not only using but going way overboard with their boasting thinking that no-one else could see it!

Signal-gate is what happens when you put small people in really big jobs.

Isn’t polstar a spin off from Volvo that the Chinese bought?

I read good things about Rivian and Lucid (?). I also just saw that Mercedes had a new EV sedan that get 475ish on a charge. That’s crazy. I live in hurricane alley though and travel too much to worry about my wife hurrivacing in an electric car.

The Saudis bought some Euro fighters, didnt they? That and the Rafael are two excellent 4th to 4.5 gen fighters our allies can buy to bridge the gap to a more friendly future.

What frustrates me currently is the idea that we the victims somehow in our political, economic and defense relationships with Europe, et al. Since when does the United need to be compensated for supporting allies whose lands and people will be ravaged by any war we have with Russia, or for supporting democracy in places like the Ukraine.

Our grandfathers and their fathers are rolling over. The gop and maga zealots accuse everyone else of hating America. Ironically I feel that it’s the angry, wealthy, white gop politicians that hate the America their forefathers built to keep them at the top of the pile.

I think the Polestar thing is a bit complicated too but yes, Volvo had them and still does the service and maybe even marketing and management ?? and I think most are made in China. I think at least one model is built in the USA though. It does get really good reviews from anyone who has previously owned a Tesla.

Whatsapp was written by a Ukrainian in the US (banned for use on military devices)

Telegram was written by Russia (banned for use on military devices)

Signal was written by an American developer (most likely an intelligence company OGA) and is allowed on military phones.

So that you understand all government phones are physically and Esim/app locked.

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What's the point?

The point was that Signal is authorized AND pre-installed on the government phones, so using it was legal. As for what they were discussing it didn't disclose TTPs or other classified information, the problem is not knowing whether one of the participants added the reporter or if it was added to the contact list previously by the COMSEC office. (because they hand the phones out from one person to the next for continuity/security)

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I don’t think this is true. Not to get too much into the weeds, but MOU October 06 2023, from the DOD CIO addressed this issue specifically. It listed a host of “unmanaged” apps, and specifically mentioned signal, among others too, that were prohibited from being used on mobile devices for DOD business.

You can read it here, in the DOD library. https://dodcio.defense.gov/Portals/0...MobileApps.pdf

Hope you guys aren’t sharing the state secrets over there on signal. Switch to X as I hear the Doge-bags have authorized that for high-side discussions.

I’ve seen junior officers and enlisted loose thier clearances, or even be separated for supid errors of omission with classified materials. Yet these clowns couldn’t be bothered to use the systems and controls that we taxpayers have spent likely billions putting in place to protect the nations secrets…from idiots like them screwing up. For F sake, almost all of them were likely within 50 yds of a SCIF. One of them, however, was in Russia while chatting about targets, TOTs, push times, etc. The team of Russian spooks assigned to monitor and eavesdrop on his every second probably laughed their asses off.

These clowns should be held accountable, but won’t be because politicians in general, and this administration specifically has an arrogant disregard for this stuff. They make a mockery of a process that everyone else is held very, very accountable to. You or I would be fired, or jailed even. Seriously, I would hope you aren’t using signal or other unapproved apps to handle classified materials and discussions.

See previous post of mine...

Whatsapp was written by a Ukrainian in the US (banned for use on military devices)

Telegram was written by Russia (banned for use on military devices)

Signal was written by an American developer (most likely an intelligence company OGA) and is allowed on military phones.

So that you understand all government phones are physically and Esim/app locked.

Now for you to understand what this means in conjunction with the MOU you linked SIGNAL is a managed APP and as I and others (along with the participants) have said, NO classified details were posted in the chat. SIGNAL is installed on the government provided phones due to it being written in the US by a corporation/OGA. Just because you and anyone can download SIGNAL doesn't mean that it's civilian use only, the US government had a hand in it's construction and DOES have backdoor access although most don't understand that abd that Signal came about "magically"[emoji57] after each of the other APPs that were used but persons of concern found through public news stories that 5 eyes had access...

The reporter claimed many things that were proven false in the congressional hearing that showed the group chat texts didn't contain what he said, i.e. TTPs, etc...

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I’m just a simple farmer, but bullet point 10 of the memo states:

10. Unmanaged 'messaging apps,' including any app with a chat feature, regardless of the primary function, are NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information. This includes but is not limited to messaging, gaming, and social media apps. (i.e., iMessage, WhatsApps, Signal).

Reads to me like a directive…don’t use signal as it is unmanaged. In fact, it doesn’t just say don’t use it for classified comms, but rather ANY non public DOD information. Just because we want to give them a pass, doesn’t mean we can or should. This would be career ending for Petty Officer Benotz, but not for any of them?

Regarding the claims that no classified info was transmitted. For every one of the administration clowns that claims that, there are 30 national security experts who claim otherwise. I know for a fact that everything about strike planning, AIR Plans, Air Tasking Orders, basically anything the CAOC puts out, is at least Secret.

Regarding the hearings…it’s ironic that you touch on that subject. Just today the “fake news” is reporting that the CIA’s CIO testified in court (a bit more weighty than in front of a GOP lead subcommittee) that he could not recover anything substantive from Director Radcliffe’s signal chat. So either:
1) they were deleted as part of a coverup
2) signal doesn’t remotely meet the US legal requirement for government communication archiving
3) CIA CIO is perjuring himself in court. Actual perjury, not simple lying to congress which everyone seems to do

Given these clown’s propensity for lawlessness, I’m going with 1 or 2. I doubt any professional civil servant would perjure himself in court to make his political appointee boss look better.

Think they would give us a free pass for a similar security breech? No chance, nor would we deserve it.

SIGNAL that is placed on our government issued phones is MANAGED and is not open to linking like the Unmanaged SIGNAL APP on the iTunes store. You might have not noticed the part about APPs in the unmanaged partition....

The coms folks are 100% dicks and they are the only ones who can place SIGNAL or any other message service on these phones, I basically had to get a fucking colonoscopy to get Tapatalk put onto the "open" side of my phone and I'm in an RSO position in MENA.

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It obviously doesn't work like that or was the reporter also issued a secure government phone with the managed partition and unlinkable Signal App ??? OR was everybody just using their personal phones (which is what I heard when it first happened)? Layer upon layer of stupidity and arrogance, Hegseth's reply to the reporters when he got off the plane in Hawaii included. Small man, big job, says it perfectly.

Security leaks happen more often than we like. This is just another blunder that happened under the new administration's watch. To have it happen to a us reporter is much better than to have it happen to one of our counterparts in another country.

But I think the defense secretary could have acknowledged the loose ends in the security protocols and make promise to tighten up the safeguards. It's the least he can do to shore up public confidence that national security communications remains "secure".

It is reassuring to know that Hegseth also used signal to brief up his wife and personal lawyer, in real time, on the classified Yemen attack details. Middle school boy needs mommy’s approval.